I bit my lip to keep myself from answering as we followed Director Swenson through the door and into one of the long, featureless white hallways characteristic of CDC installations everywhere. It’s like they’re afraid to spend money on interior decorating when there’s such a good chance of the place needing to be hosed down with bleach at any moment. We didn’t pass any doctors, although we did walk past several large glass “windows” looking in on empty patient rooms. White walls, white beds, white floors—white everything. I woke up in one of those rooms once, after the CDC team picked us up outside of Memphis. I thought I’d died and gone to the sterilized afterlife.

Director Swenson stopped in front of a door that looked exactly like every other door in the place, except for the larger, more elaborate-looking testing unit built into the wall next to it. “The cycle takes approximately fifteen seconds,” he said, pressing his palm flat against the test pad. “Once I go through, the door will close and the unit will reset. Please don’t try to follow without a clean test. I’d really rather not send the entire facility into lockdown today.”

“It’s cool,” I said. “We know how to do our jobs.”

The light over the door turned green and the door swung open with a hydraulic hiss, saving Director Swenson the trouble of answering me. Instead, he raised an eyebrow and stepped through the doorway before the door swung closed again.

“Scale of one to ten, how stupid is this?” asked Becks, pressing her own palm against the testing panel.

Ten, said George.

“Oh, five, tops,” I said, and smiled brightly. “Don’t worry about it. We’re just here to ask the scientists some questions about science. Scientists like that sort of shit.”

“Right,” said Becks dubiously as the light turned green and the door hissed open again. She stepped through.

“Hey, George,” I muttered, flattening my hand against the testing panel. “Check this out.”

This is what I do know: A lie, however well-intended, can’t prepare you for reality or change the world. The accident victim will die whether they’re promised recovery or not, but the parent told that their child is dying may have time to prepare, and may be able to treasure those final days together even more. To tell the truth is to provide armament against a world too full of cruelties to be defeated with simple falsehoods. If these truths mean the world is less comforting than it might have been, it seems like a pretty small price to pay.

It seems to me we owe the world—more, we owe ourselves—the exchange of comfort for the chance that maybe the truth can do what people always say it can. The truth may, given the opportunity, set us free.

—From The Kwong Way of Things, the blog of Alaric Kwong, April 16, 2041